Bangladesh has almost no spare farmland, and its population has grown by more than 60 million since 1990. Feeding everyone has depended on getting more rice from every hectare.
It has worked. Average rice yields rose from 2.57 tonnes per hectare in 1990 to 5.29 in 2024, and total rice production grew from about 27 million to 61 million tonnes.
2.06×
Rice yield per hectare in 2024 compared with 1990.
The biggest driver was the spread of high-yielding varieties grown in the dry-season boro crop, made possible by shallow tube-well irrigation. Fertiliser, new varieties from the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute — including flood- and salt-tolerant strains — and better extension services added to the gains.
The challenge now is sustaining them: groundwater levels are falling in the north-west, coastal salinity is rising, and climate change threatens the stable seasons rice depends on.
Source: FAO, FAOSTAT, via Our World in Data.